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SPEECH. 



House op Representatives, September 4, 1841. 

Mr. BoARDMAN, of Coiinecticut, after a call of the House, to which 165 
members had responded, called for the yeas and nays on a motion yester- 
day made by him to lay on the table the following resolution : 

Resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to inform this House, if not in- 
compatible with the public interest, whether any officer of the army or the Attorney General of 
the United Stales has, since the 4th of March last, been directed to visit the State of New York 
for any purpose connected with the imprisonment or trial of Alexander McLeod ; and, if so, to 
communicate to this House copies of the instructions to, and report of, such officer ; and whether, 
by any Executive measures or correspondence, the British Government has been given to under- 
stand that Mr. McLeod will be released or surrendered. 

Mr, Adams requested Mr. Boardman to withdraw his motion. He 
(Mr. A.) had not expected to address the House on the resolution, but as 
it appeared that the House had nothing else to do just now, if he could 
have an opportunity he would submit his views upon some of the topics 
which had been introduced into the discussion. He therefore asked his 
friend from Connecticut to withdraw his motion. 

Mr. BoarDxMan said he had yesterday made the motion to lay the reso- 
lution upon the table, because it had occupied the morning hour from the 
commencement of the session, and he was of opinion that the discussion 
had been continued as long as was profitable for the House or the coun- 
try. But since he found that the honorable gentleman from Massachu- 
setts (Mr. Adams) desired to address the House, he had changed that opin- 
ion, and he would with great pleasure withdraw the motion, under the 
expectation, however, that the honorable gentleman would, upon conclud- 
ing his remarks, renew the motion to lay the resolution on the table. 

Mr. Adams was understood to make a conditional promise to do so, if 
no gentleman desired to reply to remarks which he (Mr. A.) might make. 

The motion to lay the resolution on the table was at length withdrawn. 

Mr. Adams said : Mr. Speaker : I have been of opinion that this reso- 
lution has occupied far more of the time of the People in this House than 
it ought, and had fully determined not to add to this superfluity of discus- 
sion one word of my own. But after coming into the House this morn- 
ing, finding a motion pending to lay the resolution on the table, and the 
yeas and nays called upon that motion — perceiving, also, that the House 
have nothing else to do, a sudden impulse urges me, all unprepared, to ask 
the indulgence of the House to present some of my views upon the sub- 
ject, and if they should prove desultory and disconnected, to overlook that 
infirmity without holding me to a rigorous adherence to the resolution it- 
self, but allowing me to touch occasionally, at least, upon topics collaterally 
connected with it. 

And first, I observe, that we have one great and most formidable issue 
of peace and war pending between us and Great Britain; and the first 
question which occurs to me is, what is the object of this resolution ? for 
what purpose was it off'ored ? and for what purpose has the House been 
agitated with it from the very commencement of the session to this day ? 
The gentleman who offered the resolution disclaimed all party purposes — 



he breathed in a lofty atmosphere, elevated high above that of party ; but 
what sort of comprehension had both the friends and the opponents of the 
resolution put upon it ? No party complexion ! Oh no ! [Laughter.] 
No ; it was patriotism ! — pure patriotism ! — patriotism pure and undefiled! 
[Renewed laughter.] Well; he was disposed to give gentlemen, on all 
sides of the House, credit for whatever patriotism they professed ; but sure 
it was that patriotism was a coat of many colors, and suited to very differ- 
ent complexions ; [laughter ;] and if it had not been for that unqualified 
profession of patriotism and no party which had rung through this House 
from every gentleman who had supported this resolution, he should have 
felt bound to believe it the rankest party measure that ever was introduced 
into the House. [A laugh.] For what is this resolution ? The United 
States are at this moment in a critical situation, in their relations of peace 
and war, with the most powerful nation on the face of the globe — a na- 
tion as, by the gentleman aimed at by this resolution, was most stnlcingly 
said, the tap of whose reveille drum, beginning with the rising sun,T(havels 
with him round the terraqueous globe. With this nation we have already 
one great and formidable question festering to an issue, and in which we 
are clearly right, and she is clearly wrong. Now I, for one, am not dis- 
posed to multiply issues with her, and most especially not for tendering to 
her an issue upon which we ourselves are wrong ; and upon which she is 
far better prepared for immediate aggression or defence than we are or 
can be. For upon that very border where this resolution tends to provoke 
hostile invasion, she is armed up to the eyes, while we are all but defence- 
less. She has stationed there in military array an army nearly double in 
number to the whole army of the United States — an army well appointed 
and ready to strike at a word. And you have a line of States and a pop- 
ulous border, with nothing but a river between them and that British army, 
who, at a signal from their commander, could sweep through a thousand 
miles of your country with fire, and sword, and desolation, and fall back 
into their strongholds beyond the river, almost before the knowledge of 
their incursion could reach this metropolis of your country. 

Now, with regard to the Northeastern Boundary, the right is all on our 
side, and the wrong wholly on the side of Great Britain. We can concede 
nothing. Our right must be maintained — peaceably if we can, forcibly if 
we must. For I say to this House, that from the bottom of my soul I be- 
lieve we ought, if called upon and required, to put forth our whole strength, 
and sacrifice the blood and treasure of this nation to maintain our rights 
upon that issue. With regard to the other question, I would say that I 
am not disposed to make unnecessary additional issues upon matters which 
have no immediate connexion with that; for I believe that the award of 
impartial judges would be against us. What is the object of this resolu- 
tion ? It is to make an issue with Great Britain — an issue of right or 
wrong upon the affair of the burning of the Caroline. No, sir ; never 
shall my voice be for going to war upon that issue. I hold it, in the first 
place, as a maxim, that American statesmen ought, before engaging their 
country in a war with Great Britain, to be extremely careful not to multi- 
ply issues with that country. We have now one which is full enough to 
exercise us for years to come, and the cost is much more than I am willing 
to speak of at this time, and that issue must come, as I believe. I certain- 
ly would not avoid it by any sacrifice of any kind. But while I say that, 
1 will not multiply the issues ; and more especially I will not add to tha^ 



issue other issues, upon which, when we go to a third Power to arbitrate 
upon it, they will say we are wrong. Go to war, and the fair fields of the 
State of New York may be deluged in blood. The State of New York 
may be ransacked by foreign enemies, and irreparable injury will be done 
to its people. And if the issue must be terminated with peace, as it must 
be, either by negotiation between the parties themselves, or through a 
third Power, the issue will be decided against us. We shall be told by 
any other nation that it is not the thing for us to quarrel about. 

I have not the time, if I were possessed of the information, to give a his- 
tory of the affair of the Caroline ; and it is known as much to every mem- 
ber of the House as it is to me. We have heard a great deal of talk about 
territorial rights, and independence, and of State rights. But in a question 
of that kind other nations do not look much to your State rights, nor to 
your independence questions. They will not talk of your independence ; 
but they will say who is right and who wrong ? Who struck the first 
blow, I take it, will be the main question with them. I take it that the 
late affair of the Caroline was in hostile array against the British Govern- 
ment, and that the parties concerned in it were employed in acts of war 
against it ; and I do not subscribe to the very learned opinion of the Chief 
Justice of the State of New York, (not, I hear, the Chief Justice, but a 
Jildge of the Supreme Court of that State,) that there was no act of war 
committed. Nor do I subscribe to it that every nation goes to war only on 
issuing a declaration or proclamation of war. This is not the fact. Na- 
tions often wage war for years without issuing any declaration of war. 
The question is not here upon a declaration of war, but acts of war. 
And I say that, in the judgment of all impartial men of other nations, we 
shall be held as a nation responsible; that the Caroline, there, was in a state 
of war against Great Britain ; for purposes of war, and the worst kind of 
war, to sustain an insurrection — I will not say rebellion, because rebellion 
is a crime, and because I heard them talked of as "patriots." Yes, and 1 
have heard, in the course of the discussion here, these patriots represented 
as carrying on a righteous cause, and that we ought to have assisted them; 
that we ought to have given them that assistance that a nation fighting for 
its liberty is entitled to from the generosity of other nations. Well, admit 
that merely for a moment. If we were bound to do it, we were bound to 
do it avowedly and above board; but we disclaimed all intention of taking 
any part in it. And yet there was very little disguise about this expedi- 
tion, and that this vessel was there for the purposes of hostility against the 
Canadian Government. I say, therefore, that we struck the first blow; and 
if, instead of pressing this matter to a war, we were to refer it to a third 
Power, even if it should be to a European Republic, if any such thing is 
remaining, and should say there had been an invasion of our territory, they 
would ask us a question something like that which was put to a character 
in a play of Moliere — Q,ue diahle allait ilfaire dans cette gaihe? "What 
the d — I had he to do in that galley ? [Great laughter.] 

Now, I think the arbitrator would say, "What the d — I had you to do 
with that, steamboat?" They would say that we struck the first blow. 
Now, admit that — and none of your State rights men can deny it — admit 
that, and all the rest follows of course. They will say it was wrong — ab- 
stractly, if you please. Talking of abstractions, it was wrong for an expe- 
dition to come over and burn the steamboat, and send her over the falls. 
But what was your steamboat about ? What had she been doing ? What 
2 A 



6 

was she to do the next morning ? And what ought you to do ? You have 
reparation to make for all the men and for all the arms and implements of 
war which we were transporting and going to transport to the other side, to 
foment and instigate rebellion in Canada. That is what the third party- 
would say to us. And it would come, in the end, after all the blood and 
treasure had been wasted by a war between the two countries, to this: that 
we must shake hands and drink champagne together, after having made a 
mutual apology for mutual transgression. That is the way things are set- 
tled between individuals. ''If you said so, why, I said so;" and thus the 
dispute is amicably settled. So we should have to do with this national 
matter ; for there is not any great difference, in the essentials of quarrelling 
and of making up, between nations and individuals. See a fight in the 
street between two boys, who give each other bloody noses, and, when the 
question comes to be settled between them, the basis of the settlement is, 
who gave the first blow? And the award of any honest umpire is, after 
sufteriug the parties to fight it out, that he who struck the first blow was 
in the wrong. And so it is with nations. Why, then, are you talking of 
State rights and of independence in connexion with this question ? It has 
nothing to do with it. 

There is, sir, another point of view in which 1 object to this resolution. 
I have seen here, in another part of this building, to which it would notbe 
in order to refer except indirectly, although I did hear, the other day, such 
a dressing of this House in that i3ody that I thought I almost had a right to 
get up and jivolest against it. But I will not refer to the matter except in 
terms which come within the rules of order. I have heard there, and seen 
in the newspapers out of doors, a prodigious aftair made of this matter, as 
if the Government of the United States had outraged the State of New 
York — because the great Empire State of New York had undertaken to 
say that she would hang McLeod, whatever Great Britain or the General 
Government might do. Yes ! whatever they might do, the great Empire 
State of New York would hang McLeod ! That was the language. What, 
sir, I ask, is the object of this resolution ? To inquire of the President of 
the United States whether any officer of the army, or the Attorney Gene- 
ral of the United States, since the 4th of March last, had visited the State 
of New York for any purpose connected with the trial of Alexander Mc- 
Leod ? 

I believe that question was answered before it was asked. I think the 
information was contained in a document communicated by the President 
of the United States, which stated not only that a General was sent, but 
that instructions were given to the Attorney General; and the instructions 
themselves were communicated to Congress, with the President's message, 
at the very commencement of the session. 

Why, then, should this House be occupied hour after hour in discussing 
whether the Attorney General was sent to New York, and what he was 
about there, when the President Inmself has told you that he was sent and 
the object of his mission ? 

Every body knew it before the question was asked. What then ? Has not 
the President a right to send the Attorney General to New York on that or 
any other subject ? Where is the constitutional provision prohibiting him 
from sending the Attorney General to New York on that or any other of 
the subjects which are before the judicial courts of that State ? Yes, the At- 
torney General has been sent there, and we have his instructions. And I 



have heard here, on the part of some of my forty friends from New York, a 
o-reat deal about the conscious dignity and honor of this Empire Slate of 
New York. I am not very fond of that term "Empire State," in the language 
of this Union ; and I say that if there is an " Empire" State in this Union, 
it is Delaware. To be magniloquent and talk about the Empire State may 
well become the forty gentlemen who represent the State on this floor, bav- 
in^- reference to their own numbers and the numbers of their constituents, 
or to the extent, fertility, and beauty of her soil ; yet this is a distinction 
not recognised in the Constitution of the United States. They are all, as 
members of this Union, equal ; and the State of Delaware has as good a right 
to be called the "Empire State" as New York. Now, if my forty friends 
from New York choose to call it the Empire State, I will not quarrel with 
them. It is only as to consequences that I enter my caveat against the too 
frequent use of those terms on this floor ; for there is meaning in those 
words " Empire State," when used among co-estates, more than meets the 
ear. Suppose it was in Delaware that such an event had occurred, do you 
suppose my friend here [Mr. Rodney] from Delaware would have offered 
such a resolution as this ? And, by tbe terms of the resolution, I should 
presume that my friends from New York think there is a little more digni- 
ty and power in having forty Representatives than only one. 

But there is another point of view in which I ask the attention of the 
House to this resolution. At the very time when we have this great issue 
upon another point with the British nation, and when this resolution, and 
every thing connected with it, is blowing the coals to make another issue, 
there is behind it another effort to make yet another issue between this 
Government and the State of New York. What is the object of that ? 
Are you going to war with a foreign nation ? And is that a time to split 
hairs in questions of jurisdiction between the Government of the United 
States and that of one of the separate States ? And are you going to bring 
up the question, " Which of the two has the right, the precious right, to 
hang McLeod?" Are you going to make an issue between the State of 
New York and the Government of the United States upon such an exer- 
cise of power as that ? Are you going to show your weakness at the very 
moment when you are bearding the lion in his den ? Is that the time to 
make an issue between the Government, which represents the whole coun- 
try, and a State as to its pov/er ? God forbid that I should question its 
power ; but I inquire, is it politic or wise to make a quarrel between that 
Government and this, about the most insignificant of all questions, as to 
which of you shall release McLeod ? For, while some gentlemen talk 
about hanging McLeod, others, more merciful, tell us that if it should turn 
out that this man was concerned in the affair of the Caroline, yet that there 
was a power in the State of New York that might prevent his execution — 
that the Executive of New York had the power of pardoning as well as 
the General Government, and that the attribute of mercy would be exer- 
cised with as much discretion by the Governor of New York as it would 
be by the President of the United States. But I see nothing in the corres- 
pondence which has been laid before us that would lead to the conclusion 
that the course of the law in New York would not be carried out, accord- 
ing to all its rights, and all its dignities, and the man be released without 
the necessity of a resort to the authority of the General Government. 

I am perfectly satisfied, for my own part, if it should so happen that the 
evidence is strong enough to convict him, that the Governor of New York 



would exercise the pardoning power, and .send him with an admonition to 
go and sin no more. That can be done without any entrenchment on the 
honor and dignity of the State of New York. From the first moment to 
the last, the question which has struck me is, whether you will or will not 
hang the man? That is the only question in issue between Great Britain 
and the United States. Great Britain will not go to war to settle a ques- 
tion of jurisdiction between the General Government and the State of New 
York. They will not go to war with you if the man is sent home. But, 
after all the arguments which have been used on this floor, it ultimately 
comes to this : which of the two Governments shall release McLeod ? 
Now, I say, what is all that for } Why is it that the Government of the 
United States must be arraigned by the Government of the State of New 
York, and this made a question of war between us and Great Britain ? 
Why should not the matter have been allowed to go on according to the 
correspondence between the two Governments ? No, sir, we have had 
long dissertations about war, declared and not declared, lawful and un- 
lawful, by a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, and 
here and elsewhere ; long dissertations in relation to the maintenance of 
State rights. And now what does it amount to ? Suppose you carry your 
State rights into execution ; suppose you hang the man, then the People 
of New York will exclaim : " There is our independence ; there are our 
State rights ; you see that we have hung the man." Now, what next, I 
would ask the constituents of the gentleman who oftered this resolution. 
When all the counties he represents are ravaged by the enemy, and when 
thousands and tens of thousands have been slaughtered, wives have been 
made widows and their children fatherless, I would then ask of him if he 
would have the thanks of his constituents? And the question I ask of him, 
I also ask of the Representatives of the State of New York ; of the Rep- 
resentatives of the State of Pennsylvania ; of the Representatives of the 
State of Ohio ; and of the whole line of those States which are more liable 
to the incursions which would take place by the enemy without any de- 
claration of war, who would come and butcher your people, and burn and 
destroy your property, and return immediately and take their places in 
their defences before you could raise and organize a force to save them. 
What would you do ? Would you offer a resolution to inquire whether 
an officer of the army had been sent there, or whether the Attorney Gen- 
eral had been sent there, or whether any concession had been made to the 
British Government ? No such question would be asked. I have, indeed, 
no doubt that after the country had been ravaged, there would be vigor 
and bravery enough in it to raise and array an avenging host to invade in 
turn the enemy's country, and burn their property and destroy their wives 
and children too ; and what satisfaction would that be to you ? 

If gentlemen would look into the history of Scotland and England, they 
would there find numerous accounts of the frightful and disastrous border 
wars that were carried on between the Scotch and the English. Gentle- 
men would there see what might be the consequences here if this resolu- 
tion were to be carried into effect. 

It is but a few days since I heard a gentleman from New Hampshire 
(Mr. Eastman) say, with some pain and distress, that if the present Sec- 
retary of State remained in office there would be no war — no war with 
England; and there was a great deal meant by that remark. And the 
gentleman seemed to think this a lamentable condition of atfairs. I firmly 



9 

believed it was true; but I had a very different feeling from that gentle- 
man ; and I say, God be praised if it be so, to preserve peace between the 
two countries. And, however long or short the gentleman's career may 
be, he will not see any improper concession to Great Britain sanctioned by 
the present Secretary of State, whether in peace or war. With respect to 
the present question, I have no doubt the gentleman alluded to would show 
as much firmness as any member of this House. And one of my reasons 
for troubling the House at this last expiring moment of the session is, that 
I might vindicate the conduct of that gentleman, and do him justice; for 
great injustice has been done him in regard to his remarks and correspon- 
dence. Now, I do not know that there is a word in his part of that cor- 
respondence but what I would endorse. And I say, if it is conciliatory, if 
it has any tendency to soften the asperities and rancor that may exist be- 
tween the two countries, so much the better; and I know it has had that 
effect. What did you hear when you saw a report of a different character? 
Why, your minister at the Court of St. James was panic struck, and sent a 
message to your squadron in the Mediterranean to runaway — to fly as fast 
as the winds could blow them — for John Bull was at their heels! [Laughter.] 
It is very much the fashion to say, " He did nothing more than his duty.'* 
The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ingersoll) spoke of this transac- 
tion, the other day, just as I would speak of it in general terms; but he did not 
at all question the propriety of the conduct of that gentleman. I say, not 
so. 1 say that he has disgraced this nation more than we have ever been 
disgraced since the affair of the Chesapeake frigate. What will the Ger- 
mans, what will the Italians, what, in short, will all the great nations of 
Europe say of the People of the United States ? That, upon a panic terror 
of their minister at London, they showed the white feather, and their line 
of battle ship in the Mediterranean was warned to seek refuge by flight 
from the thunders of Britain ! 

And there is another point of view in which I do not approve his con- 
duct. The gentleman has been at London four or five years. I do not 
believe there was at London a charge from any country in Europe but knew 
better what was done and doing in the Privy Council. What is the busi- 
ness of a foreign minister abroad, but to find out what is doing ? I will 
venture to say that if Christopher Hughes had been at London as our min- 
ister, he never would have written such a letter. He would have knoivn 
that there was no order of Council to authorize hostilities; and there can- 
not be hostilities without an order of the Privy Council. I speak from ex- 
perience when I say that Mr. Hughes would have been informed of such 
orders in Coiuicil, had they been issued, and of course would not have been 
frightened by every newspaper explosion of popular wrath into a belief 
that the grave and responsible Council of the nation had resorted to such 
an extremity at such a moment. 

There was one memorable case of the address of Mr. Hughes in procur- 
ing documents of the profoundest secrecy. Mr. Stratford Canning came to 
me one day, and said that he had permission to read to me a paper of 
great importance, emanating from his Government in their negotiations 
with the European alliance. He read the paper accordingly, and, when 
he had finished, I asked him if he would let me have it for half an hour, 
that I might lay it before the President, Mr. Monroe, for his perusal. He 
said he was forbidden to let it go out of his own hands; but that, if I desir- 
ed, he would go with me to the President's house, and read it to him. This 



10 

I declined, but contented myself with making, from memory, a verbal state- 
ment of its contents to Mr. Monroe, and within three days after I received 
a copy of that same paper from Christopher Hughes. The next time Mr. 
Canning came to the Department, I said to him that he needed not to have 
been so strait-laced about that despatch which he would not allow me 
to take for half an hour to the President for his perusal, for we now had 
a copy of it. He was amazed, A copy of it.? said he. He clapped his 
hands on his two waistcoat pockets, took the key of his desk out of one 
of them, held it up, and said: That is the key to a good lock; and that 
paper has been under that lock and key every moment since I received it, 
except when in my own hands. I said, do not suspect anyone about you. 
We are not in the habit of purchasing secret papers from domestics or sec- 
retaries. We have got it from a great distance. 

Yes, I had a copy of that document, perhaps the most secret as well as 
the most efficient of the diplomatic papers which passed between the par- 
ties to the Holy Alliance, and it was procured with many others by Mr. 
Hughes, by no improper arts and at no cost'of secret service money, but by 
the art of making friends by his social qualities wherever he goes. I men- 
tion this to show what ought to be the qualities of a public minister abroad. 
If a minister is in the habit of friendly, social intercourse with the other 
members of the diplomatic corps at the same court, with an ordinary por- 
tion of sagacity, he has the key to all their secrets. I say it from long 
knowledge and experience. How was it when this panic letter was writ- 
ten to the commodore of the American squadron ? What did the Ameri- 
can minister know of the system of policy, foreign or domestic, of the Brit- 
ish cabinet ? The letter itself proves that he was as blind to it as a beetle; 
that he was ignorant of the first letters of their alphabet. If he had known 
any thing of it, he would not have disgraced himself and his country by 
the exposure of his ignorance. I say this not from any personal feeling to- 
wards that gentleman, although I have not been an admirer of some of his 
diplomatic exhibitions heretofore, as the journals of this House may show ; 
but I have looked to this transaction entirely upon its merits alone, and I say 
r.hat those letters written to the commodore of the squadron in the {Medit- 
erranean, and their consequences, have been disgraceful to the nation ; and 
I, for one, hold the man responsible for it, and say he was not doing his 
duty, or that he neglected some of the most important parts of his duty as 
a public minister, liut this is somewhat of a digression, and yet intimate- 
ly connected with this McLeod question of peace and war; for what must 
the Privy Council and her Majesty Queen Victoria herself, who, I dare say, 
all woman as she is, has more fire in her heart than ever to have sitten 
down and written a letter like that — what must that Privy Council have 
thought when they first heard of it ? They would say, God grant that this 
man may remain here as Jonathan's minister till the end of time; we may 
be sure he never will know any thing of our real intentions, and will al- 
ways have a becoming reverence for the terrors of the beak and lightning of 
the eye of the British eagle, and blundering rashness enough to put out the 
eyes of his own. 

To return to the subject of this resolution, and as to whether the British 
Government have been given to understand that McLeod will be released 
or surrendered. What, I ask again, is the purpose! of this inquiry ? For 
this question, too, has been answered before it was asked. Undoubtedly 
the British Government have been given to understand that he will be re- 



11 

leased or surrendered. Whether this shall be done by the authority of the 
United States or by that of the State of New York may be a question of 
constitutional power among ourselves, but it is no question between us and 
Great Britain. In negotiation, the Government of the United States is that 
which the British nation have the right to hold and will hold responsible 
for his personal safety. Undoubtedly the British minister has been told 
that " the Government of the United States entertains no doubt that, after 
this avowal of the transaction as a public transaction, authorized and un- 
dertaken by the British authorities, individuals concerned in it ought not, 
by the principles of public law and the general usages of civilized States, 
to be holden personally responsible in the ordinary tribunals of law for 
their participation in it." 

Undoubtedly the instructions given to the Attorney General when sent 
to New York, and a copy of which was communicated to Mr. Fox, did 
aver that, " whether the process be criminal or civil, the fact of having 
acted under public authority, and in obedience to the orders of lawful su- 
periors, must be regarded as a valid defence ; otherwise, individuals would 
be holden responsible for injuries resulting from the acts of Government, 
and even from the operations of public war." 

Yes, sir, the British Government have been given to understand that 
since their avowal that McLeod acted under their authority, he must be 
ultimately released or surrendered. And what then ? Is it not so ? Why, 
sir, Indian savages — cannibals, to whom revenge is the first of virtues — 
accept of ransom for the blood of their relatives slain ; and is it for a Chris- 
tian nation, in cold blood, four years after a defensive irregularity of border 
war, provoked by their own people, to hold a man responsible to their 
municipal law for murder, because the life of a man was lost in a nocturnal 
foray, authorized by the public authorities, civil and military, of the coun- 
try in whose defence it v/as undertaken and achieved ? Sir, there is not a 
civiUzed country upon earth but would cry shame upon us for carrying such 
barbarian principles into practice. A war provoked by such an act would 
be a war of extermination — a war of merciless butchery ; and the scene of 
its first unutterable sufferings would be the very border of our own coun- 
try, upon which we should bringdown this judgment of Heaven. 

I ask every member of this House to put himself in the position of being 
a prisoner in a foreign land for an act done by the orders of his Govern- 
ment — for the burning of a boat or the killing of men : I ask every man 
here to put himself in the situation of McLeod, either in Great Britain or 
any part of the British dominions, and suppose it a matter of negotiation 
between the two Governments — what would they say if the British Secre- 
tary of State, from a representation that this Avas done by the orders of the 
Government of the United States, and that the nation held itself responsible 
for the act — the British Secretary of State would say, " of course ultimate- 
ly we shall release him ?" Now, 1 would ask if this would be disgraceful 
to the British nation .^ It would have been directly the contrary — that 
there is no descending from the dignity, and rights, and independence of a 
nation, in admitting the principle that the authority of a nation covers as 
with a mantle the deeds of individuals performed under it ; and that, if ar- 
rested upon civil or criminal process for it, there must be some mode of ob- 
taining their release. I say that the minister of no nation upon earth would 
be ashamed of making such a declaration as that. And now carry this cor- 
respondence to the utmost extent. What is it more ? How does it compromit 



12 

this country? It does not take McLeod out of the State of New York. 
!t never pretended to arrest the operation of the law. The British minister 
has been given to understand that it is a question between the two nations, 
and that the General Government, as you and I, have a deep interest in 
the stake as well as New York ; and that, if it should come to hostilities, it 
is not for the Empire State of New York to carry on the war with Great 
Britain. No ; it is a question for which the honor of the whole nation is 
pledged, and therefore the Government of the United States has a right to 
speak upon it. Now, I ask why is this question raised, as it is raised in 
this resolution, between the Government of the United States and the Gov- 
ernment of the State of New York ? It is the easiest thing in the Avorld to 
do what the Constitution of the United States and the Constitutions of the 
several States intended to do above all other things ; that is, that each of 
them shall discharge its own duties, passing along in parallel lines, with- 
out crossing each other's path. And the course taken by the United States 
is calculated for that. After commenting as I have done, upon the effects 
produced in foreign lands by a report of this House, so famous and no- 
torious as it was last winter, I ask you what has been the counteracting 
effect of this very correspondence? The effect has been to calm the irri- 
tation of the British Government, roused as it had been to indignation and 
resentment by that inflammatory repqft. This eflect is apparent in the 
tone of Mr. Peel's speech to his conitituents at Tamworth. I have no 
doubt that Mr. Fox represented the thmg in that light, and, from the com- 
plexion of these communications, he represented that there was no spirit of 
hostility to Great Britain on the part of this Government. I say it is one 
of the best papers that ever was written, and the effect of it upon the na- 
tion is to be one of glory and not of reproach. Sir, it has fully authenti- 
cated the saying of the gentleman from New Hampshire, that you will not 
have a war with England while the present Secretary of State shall remain 
in office. I believe it. I thank God it is so; and your constituents, and my 
coiifetituents, and the constituents of the gentleman from New Hampshire — 
those of the gentleman from New York who offered this resolution — ay, 
sir, the constituents of every member of this House, have great reason to 
raise their hands in joy and gratitude to the God of Mercy that it is so, and 
in supplication that it may be so still; for, were it otherwise — 

The child may rue that is unborn 
The sentence of that day. 

As to this resolution — [here several members rose and addressed the 
Speaker, who gave notice to Mr. Adams that the hour had expired. Several 
members moved that he should have leave to proceed ; other voices were 
heard — " Move to lay it on the table."] Mr. Adams said, for my own 
part I should prefer to take a direct vote upon the resolution, and record 
my name upon the Journal, " no." [Several voices, " Move the previous 
question !"] Mr. Adams. Upon the whole, to lay on the table is a milder 
negative; and so, if no member wishes to reply to me, I move to lay the 
resolution on the table. 

It was laid on the table by yeas^nd nays— 109 to 70. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




